1521 – Pope Leo X excommunicates Martin Luther in the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem. Three months later, Luther was called to defend his beliefs before Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms, where he was famously defiant. For his refusal to recant his writings, the emperor declared him an outlaw and a heretic.
1749 – Benning Wentworth issues the first of the New Hampshire Grants, leading to the establishment of Vermont.
1777 – American General George Washington defeats British General Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton.
1861 – American Civil War: Delaware votes not to secede from the United States.
1868 – Meiji Restoration in Japan: The Tokugawa shogunate is abolished
1870 – Construction of the Brooklyn Bridge begins.
1925 – Benito Mussolini announces he is taking dictatorial powers over Italy.
1932 – Martial law is declared in Honduras to stop a revolt by banana workers fired by the United Fruit Company.
1947 – Proceedings of the U.S. Congress are televised for the first time.
1957 – The Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch.
1961 – The SL-1 nuclear reactor is destroyed by a steam explosion in the only reactor incident in the United States to cause immediate fatalities. Click here to view the USAEC report on the cause of the accident
1962 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro.
1977 – Apple Computer is incorporated.
1990 – Manuel Noriega, leader of Panama, surrenders to American forces.
1993 – George Bush and Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).
Births
106 BC – Cicero, Roman philosopher, lawyer, and politician (d. 43 BC)
1810 – Antoine Thomson d’Abbadie, French geographer, ethnologist, linguist, and astronomer
1892 – J.R.R. Tolkien, English philologist and author (d. 1973)
1926 – George Martin, English composer, conductor, and producer, the fifth Beatle (d. 2016)
1929 – Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel Corporation
1945 – Stephen Stills, American singer-songwriter, guitarist
Deaths
323 – Emperor Yuan of Jin (b. 276)
1322 – Philip V of France (b. 1292)
1437 – Catherine of France (b. 1401)
1895 – James Merritt Ives, American lithographer, co-founded Currier and Ives (b. 1824)
1945 – Edgar Cayce, American psychic and author (b. 1877)
1965 – Milton Avery, American painter (b. 1885)
1967 – Jack Ruby, killer of Lee Harvey Oswald (b. 1911)
1979 – Conrad Hilton, founded the Hilton Hotels & Resorts
